Shopping Handmade for my photography gear: Warning Label tripod bag!

Hello everyone!


Monday is here, and though it is not the beginning of a work week for me, cause I've worked this weekend, it has been a very lazy and not particularly motivating day for me, even if I got some nice packages in the mail.


After some pondering over a cup of coffee I realized I should work on showing off how to keep buying handmade when it comes to photography gear! And no, I'm not talking about cameras or lenses made out of cardboard!


You all know already I'm always gonna try to look for a handmade alternative, and after getting my tripod, I started a search for a tripod bag on Etsy, and I have to say, it's sad to see how very little artisans & crafters have photography related gear and accessories, and how most of the camera bags are all the same basic style, and even if fabric wise can be female photographer oriented, none of them are different from your usual messenger-style-camera-bag. Of course, I got my own different kind bag with my Rocky Van Gory camera bag.




That got me thinking, and the obvious solution presented itself: why not ask Jamie? Jamie is the brains & hands behind Warning Label Accessories, and she's always ready for a challenge! She's made me custom bags, custom strap covers, and all sort of things, and this time she didn't disappoint me, and was all willing to take on the challenge!


We went for a drawstring closing bag, with an adjustable strap, that can be worn across messenger style to take it around with me more comfortably, and of course, I chose a fabric that would make it sure I wouldn't miss it anywhere, pink with skulls! ;)




Here you can see my amazing tripod bag! Isn't it awesome?






Even the bf was considering getting one made for himself! ;)

aka Cinders ~ Eco Friendly Fashion Jewelry and Accessories!!

Friday is finally here, and even if I work this weekend (again), at least I'll be able to sleep in since I'm done with the course I was doing in the mornings this week, and I'm back to my 3 pm to 10 pm usual shift.


To celebrate Friday I want to introduce you all to a shop full of extremely unique and also eco friendly necklaces and other accessories called akaCinders, and that is run by the talented Cinders herself!


Cinders make the most unique necklaces and broochs with flowers she makes out of eco-friendly felt, that has been spun from recycled plastic bottles. Talk about a green fashion statement!


I discovered Cinders' Etsy shop a while back, through her daughter, Poppy, the talent & threads behind Poppy's Wicked Garden (I have to say, talent does run in the genes in their family!), and I had been keeping an eye on it, till I saw the Sweet Hearts Dance necklace and fell utterly in love with it! It's super cute, and I think the vintage style heart charm absolutely makes this necklace!




Unless you buy something from her Ready to Ship section, all of the necklaces are made to order, so Cinders gets to work on your necklace after your purchase, it will mean it won't be the one you see in the photo, but it will be made just for you and will look just as lovely, even if there might be some slight differences, since the felt flowers are cut by hand.


I got my necklace super fast, and it came in a lil recycled cardboard box, with Cinders' hand stamped logo, that not only protects your necklace from being squished during shipping by not-so-careful postal workers, but also is ideal to store the necklace since it will make sure it won't collect any dust or be crushed by any other necklaces you might have in your jewellry drawer.






This necklace is meant to be worn as a choker, and it adapts to different neck sizes with the extender chain. It can be worn many ways, but I think it looks cuter if worn on one side of the neck!






If you're thinking you want one yourself, you're lucky! Cinders has a great promotion on her Etsy shop right now, if you spend over $20, you get a free Double Gerbera necklace! It's valid till Feb 14th and it's her way of saying Happy Valentine's Day to all her customers!

Wearing Handmade Wednesday: Dungaree Dolly Bags!

Wow, I don't know if it's just me, but doesn't it seem as if the time flies by sometimes? It's already Wednesday again! I'm hoping the time passes this fast for me till the end of March and then slows down a bit, I want to enjoy my vacation!


As fast as Wednesday arrived, it didn't find unprepared, and I'm all ready for another Wearing Handmade Wednesday edition!

About to leave the ward at the end of my shift with my trusty Dolly bag!

Here you can see one of my favourite Dolly bags, and it's the one that filled to the brim with stuff, I take to work every day! It's a Bowling bag, and I got it custom made with the fabric I wanted (just had to ship Dolly a yard of the fabric). It's cute, it's unique and it's tough cause it's been my work bag for over two years now! If you want something custom made, she has loads of fabrics to choose from on her website (or you can send yours, like I did) or if you're more of the instant gratification kind, she always has some ready to ship bags at her Etsy shop! Every girls needs a Dolly bag! ;)

Handmade With Love by Irene!

Monday, such a Manic Monday today! I'm surely wishing it was Sunday... from 9 am to 2 pm I have a course, and from 3 pm to 10 pm my regular work schedule. But luckily, I'm having a day off tomorrow!


Today I want to show off a handmade present that my friend Irene made me for Reyes, a wonderful hand stitched bookmark! It combines two loves of mine, reading & handmade, so it was obviously a great hit! Isn't it just so cool?








As you lot know I love handmade goodies, so giving me a handmade present and even more one made by yourself, it's really a straight path to my heart! (Another good route would be buying me something handmade from one of my favourite sellers!*winkwink*)

Sandygrafik: Sandra Vargas's Art & Goodies!!

Aaah, Friday! Today I'm enjoying the day off, even if I have to work the weekend. Errands, some shopping and something in the mail, always a good start of the day!


If you remember a previous post about my Haut Totes' bag, I went for a Sandra Vargas design, and I obviously had to check Sandra's own Etsy shop: Sandygrafik. I'm absolutely in love with her Wizard of Oz designs (particularly her Elphaba, cause after reading Wicked, I'm quite a fan of the Wicked Witch) and with her Alice in Wonderland series, all females in her view and all gorgeous, my favourite has to be the Lady Hatter, her version of the Mad Hatter, though her Queen of Hearts is fantastic too!




For my first purchase from her shop (cause I do intend to go back for more) I went for her Alice in Wonderland set of bookmarks, since a bookworm like myself can never have too many bookmarks, and her diecut vinyl stickers with the Lady Hatter & Elphaba and her choice of other two.



When I got my order, Sandra had also included a wonderful postcard of her Lady Cupcake design. I love how vibrant the colours are in her pieces, and what a lovely attention to details all her characters have! I got two Elphaba's stickers, and I'm planning to use one for my suitcase and the other for my car.











I love the tassels the bookmarks have, cause sometimes bookmarks can get lost in big books, but not with a tassel clearly hanging from the book!







For my next order, I'm thinking of a set of the Alice postcards and probably either postcard or print of her Little Prince illustration, I've always had a soft spot for the Little Prince!

Wearing Handmade Wednesday: MTcoffinz Underground!

Another Wednesday has come around, and that means yet another entry of Wearing Handmade Wednesday is ready here!




I already showed off my MTcoffinz Underground's Skull Nurse scarf, but since Jinx is releasing new embroidery designs all the time, I was bound to go back to her shop. And so, when I saw her Patronus Stag design for scarves, I decided to ask if she could adapt it for fingerless gloves and in purple. And so my awesome Purple Patronus gloves were born! They're so warm and comfy & just plain cool!


And if you're wondering what the heck a Patronus is... this lil geek recommends that you go read the Harry Potter series, or alternatively, go watch "The Prisoner of Azkaban", but trust me, books are always better than their movies! ;)

Rocky Van Gory camera bag!!!

Hello everyone!


We're again at the beginning of a new week, in the sometimes dreaded Monday. Not for me, since I'm happily having it off after working night shift!


Today, I'm finally working a long overdue blog entry about an amazing collaboration between two amazingly talented ladies that I love to bits: Rhiannon from Rocky The Zombie and Brooke from Brooke Van Gory designs!


For every photographer, and even more for every female photographer, there's this hunt for the right kinda bag, that you can take around without it being too obviously a camera bag but with enough space for everything you'd want to carry around, and that will protect your camera! And in my case, you have to add more space in there, so I can use it as carry on luggage!


The search for the perfect bag to take my camera and gadgets and carry on luggage was over when I saw Brooke working on camera bags (branching out from her awesome purses and diaper bags) and when Brooke & Rhi got their heads together and started working on bags with Rhi's amazing lil zombies hand painted or screened onto them!





After much thought and pondering, I decided to go with the Zombie with Cupcake design, and both ladies got onto work! Bag was made with two of my fave colours, Royal Blue & Black, and the zombie design was screened on silver ink. Super cute! Brooke gave it an adjustable strap made out of a car seat belt, so it's very tough and durable! And being able to wear it messenger style is really convenient when you have to go through airports and trains (and even more when you get stuck in London for 5 days and have to drag around hand luggage and suitcase everywhere!).








I'd totally recommend that if you're looking for a cool, durable bag with loads of packing space maybe it be a camera bag, or a purse or a diaper bag, go check Brooke's shop on Artfire to see what styles she offers and check her facebook fan page to check her previous bags, and of course, don't forget to go check Rhiannon's Etsy or Artfire shop for even more cute Zombie goodness!

My faithful Rocky Van Gory bag in Reading's B&B during my "trapped in the UK, blame the snow" stint!

Friends Photos for Friday!

Hanging out with friends is always a lot of fun, and when you love taking photos and your friends get a kick of posing for you, you end up with a lot of photos!


Last Sunday I met with some of my best friends to hang out and see Al's new apartment, right in the middle of Madrid's town centre! It's a small apartment, but the view and situation more than make up for the size of it!


We had an improvised photo shoot on the common upside terrace of the block, and here are a few of the many shots I took (camera trigger happy!).


















Have a great weekend, the blog will be back on Monday, with a feature on my Rocky Van Gory camera bag! ;)

Wearing Handmade Wednesday: Julian Bean Accessories!!

Hello everyone! Today is that day of the week so it's time for Wearing Handmade Wednesday again!

My sis-in-law wearing my Cranberry Julian Bean slouch hat!

During our gift giving celebration & dinner in Jan 5th (the official day is Jan 6th, but in my family we do it our way) my sis-in-law saw my cranberry Julian Bean beanie hat, and liked it so much that she tried it own and decided to ask me for one for herself!


I still need to talk to her about what colour she wants it to be, and what colour she wants to button, cause she said she wanted just one accent button, like this one. That's the best thing about the Julian Bean beanie hats, you can choose to make it, exactly as you want it, one button or two, and she has 24 colours of yarn to choose from! I'm actually waiting for my 3rd hat to arrive in the mail any day now, and this one is a button-less one!


And in case you'd wonder, yes, it's yours truly in the first pic of the beanie hat listing! ;)

Shopping Handmade: Esther's Birthday & Holiday Decorations!

Monday is here, and with it, back to work for me!


Today, I wanted to show off a wonderful custom doll that the very talented Ana from Camamiel created for my friend Esther!


I've shown off Camamiel's amazing dolls before, cause I own three of her lovely nurse dolls, Escarlatina, Cholera & Influenza! And I knew my friends from uni (and fellow nurses) would love them as much as I do, so I got the idea of getting one nurse doll custom made for my friend Esther's birthday gift!




Since Esther practices martial arts and loves everything Japanese, I asked Ana to make a mix of a samurai/ninja nurse, and she created the cute and dangerous Bambú! A really nice nurse, wearing a kimono and all ready to fight her way through in dangerous places to attend her patients!


After my return from my trip to India, and Esther's trip to Japan, we had our yearly meet up of DUE-PAC's (our group's nickname since Uni!) since Náyade had come from Italy for the Holidays as usual. We met up at Pilu's house for Japanese food, tiramisu and tea! Esther loved Bambú, as I knew she would! And so did Náyade and Pilu! You don't get many cute nurse dolls, and even less Samurai nurses!

Bambú and the Kokeshi doll that Esther brought for me from Japan became instant friends!

And, I also wanted to show off the amazing Holiday ornaments I got from Camamiel's shop! I got a pair of her Pixielves that are still hanging around the house (I'll have to eventually take them down) and also she sent me a totally adorable Gingerbread Nurse ornament!










As you can see, Ana has something cute for everyone in her shop, and I'm already plotting the next custom nurse doll for Náyade's b-day! ;)

Illustrated Ink!!

Christmas/Holidays is now officially over in Spain too, we've got our presents yesterday on the 6th, overindulged in Roscón de Reyes (if you have no idea what it is, here's what wikipedia says about it) and now it's time to take the decorations down, the lights off the streets, and start thinking about the plans for the New Year!


I have a few entries I should have done before, but between the holidays in India with G, the 5 days stuck in London, I have a bit of a backlog of posts, but I'll be catching up on the coming weeks!


Today, I'm gonna be giving the spotlight to the very awesome & talented Leila from Illustrated Ink! For my regular readers the name might sound familiar, cause I've already featured some brilliant custom work she did for me to give as gifts here.


Leila is a full time artist, that paints lovely originals, draw wonderful illustrations, and gives new lives to ugly old vintage pieces she finds, all in her unique mix of Day of the Dead and Old School tattoo style!


After loving the pieces she created for my friends, I knew I needed to get some her art for myself, so after much pondering and trying to choose (her Etsy shop is filled with loads of amazing pieces, from prints, to painted wall decorations, to some pull toys, to paper dolls... all sort of wonderful things!) I decided to go for two of her prints: the Day of the Dead Siempre cat print and the Day of the Dead Amigos dog print, not only cause they're perfect for any animal lover but also because she donates part of the profit from those prints to the Humane Society! And to complete my order, I went for one of her unique Vintage Style lockets, with her Day of the Dead Hello Kitty illustration! Truly a wonderful piece!





Both the prints have really vivid colours, and I'll be sure to frame & hang them once I get a place of my own!






I'm completely in love with the locket! As I'm sure many of you know I'm a huge Hello Kitty lover, and this necklace just combines that with my love for handmade, so it's a total win-win! And the size of the locket is perfect for my taste too! Not too big, but also not too small, and you can clearly see the image since it's enclosed in a dome that magnifies the image!















Leila also sent me a few postcards with some of her art, including one with the Day of the Dead Hello Kitty, and the colours are just fantastic! So alive and vibrant!




If you are looking for some art that is out of the ordinary, you must check Leila's! I'm sure you'll find something you'll love! She's even created a Pin Up Nurse Paper doll!